Nicholas Wade, who contributes science pieces for The New York Times, has a new book out called A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History. Its thesis is not only that human “races” are biological realities, but that differences in the structure of human societies, as well as behavioral differences between ethnic groups, are based largely on genetic differences produced by natural selection. So, for instance, Wade imputes the high achievement to the Jews to selection that operated on “our” (since I’m a cultural Jew) ancestors, the high achievement of Western societies to diffusion of “smart” genes from the upper classes to lower ones, and so on. He gives related “natural selection” arguments for the dysfunctionality of African societies compared to those of Europe, and why Asian populations never produced the technical innovations of the West.

The Daily Caller summarizes the reactions, which have been mixed. The most over-the-top review was that of Charles “Bell Curve” Murray in The Wall Street Journal. Predictably, given the book’s biological determinism, Murray pronounced it “historic”:

More: New Book on Race by Nicholas Wade: Professor Ceiling Cat Says Paws Down « Why Evolution Is True